This is the girl I know: one hundred percent in or out. No waffling. A girl who treats life like a missile with a locked-in course.
Her eyes roam over me and I’m confused by the slant of her lips.
“Lincoln?” she says as the silly smile grows.
“Yes?’
“You’re not wearing a shirt.”
Embarrassment heats my body and my hand darts to my chest, feeling the exposed skin. “Sorry.”
Those blue eyes smolder. “I’m not. But you may want to get dressed for this.”
Lila
...and on the rock climbing—I think you’re underestimating yourself.
~ Lincoln
Lincoln walks beside me through the open field toward the tree line. He has a wide gait and I struggle to appear casual as I attempt to match his stride. His shirt’s back on, which is a sin. He could definitely give Echo’s guy a run for his money in the abs department.
At the wooden shed, the combination lock whines as I spin it to the right, the left and then back to the right. With a click, I unlatch the lock and open the door. Sunlight streams in and dust particles dance in the beams.
“Want to tell me what we’re doing out here?” Lincoln asks.
“Reclaiming my pride.” Stupid Stephen and stupid me. The past six months of our relationship flip through my mind like a bad award show montage: how I told him I was going to Florida, how he balked and then started talking about how scared I’d be once I moved. He played me. He played me so well that I almost abandoned my dreams.
If I’m being deep-down honest, though, Stephen’s prank was just the excuse I’d been searching for to drop Florida. And I could include my anxiety over Echo leaving and Lincoln not heading to Florida in the fall in the pathetic-excuse category. The truth is I’ve doubted going away to school because I’ve doubted me. I’m afraid of being alone.
I don’t know how to fix my fear, but I do know how to fix Stephen.
Once my eyes adjust to the darkness of the shed, I walk in and grab my brothers’ paintball guns. Lincoln was completely right. It’s time to stop being scared and start being proactive. It’s time someone turned the tables on the slimy little bastard.
I toss Lincoln one of the guns. He raises his eyebrows once he realizes what he holds in his hands.
“Shoot for their feet,” I say. “Their shoes cost two hundred and fifty dollars and they’d be pissed if they got stained.”
His wicked smile answers that he understands the plan and that he’s on board. “Have you ever used one of these?”
“Yep.” But it’s nothing I’ve ever broadcast to the world. “Have you?”
“It’s been a while.”
Good. “We’ve got six hours until sunset, and then it’s on.”
Lincoln’s eyes travel over my body, his gaze lingering on my curves. “I think I’m falling in love.”
At the word love, my insides flutter. I tuck my hair behind my ear, trying to imagine how sexy I could possibly be while wearing a pair of ratty cutoff jeans and a T-shirt and cradling a paintball gun. And then I wonder what it would be like if he really was falling for me, because Lincoln in real life is a million times more intense than Lincoln in letters...and I’m seriously falling for him.
Lincoln
Will you go outside on the 28th and watch the meteor shower? I know what you’re thinking: 3:00 a.m.? But I think it will be beautiful. Besides, it will be cool to know that you’re watching the sky at the same exact time as me.
~ Lila
With a hip cocked in the door frame of Lila’s room, I watch as she towel-dries her hair. Earlier, I witnessed Lila hit bull’s-eye after bull’s-eye with that paintball gun. The girl ain’t playing. Experiencing her Rambo side brought on some fear.
I chuckle to myself. It also turned me on.
The late-afternoon sun floats into her bedroom. We’ve got a few hours until nightfall. Being a natural climber, I called the high position in the trees. Lila plans to be at ground level.
She tosses the towel into a hamper and combs through her hair. “When will you have to leave?” she asks.
“I called my parents while you were in the shower. I told them I’d be home by Monday morning.” I also told them to expect major changes when I finally did arrive home—that I was going to focus on my future, not on the past. They weren’t happy I left so suddenly and that I didn’t graduate, but they weren’t irate.
She bites her lower lip and sinks to her bed. “So you’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad you came,” she says.
“Me too.” Our gazes meet, and it’s the most comfortable I’ve ever felt staring into someone else’s eyes. “Will you be okay by yourself?”
She nods. “I’ll probably wake to every little sound, but I’ll be fine.”
“That’s my girl.” My eyes widen as I realize what I said. Lila’s not my girl. I want her to be, but... “I mean—”
“No, I like what you said.” Lila glances away, her hair swinging into her face.
Could she possibly feel what I feel? Lila and I were once strangers who met at a funeral. We became friends through letters, bonded by a shared dream of college in another state, and then I fell for her. Could she have also fallen for me?
In a handful of hours, I’m going to head home, and the one lesson I learned from Josh’s death is that life has to be lived now; the future isn’t always guaranteed. I have this one shot with her, and I’m going to take it. “This past fall you told me that you felt close to me even though we’re hundreds of miles away.”